Drifted

"Good day! What would you like today?" 

"Hmm. I can't remember what is what I...?"

"You want a flat white. A flat white, very flat. Very hot. In a take away cup. With a spoon on the side so you can pour your own sugar," she interrupted as I tried to recall what was the name of the drink I simply call 'cafe con leche'. 

I smiled. 

Shit. I need to stop coming here. They already know how I like my coffee which means that I've had too many, which means that I already spent too much.

At times, I wish the questions I'm asked were as simple as "what would you like today?"

A few months ago the questions were different. 

“Are you looking to punish yourself?” 

“Are you looking to get your ass kicked?”

Those were some of the questions he asked as I made the final preparations.

He has been asking questions since I met him yet never expecting answers.

And that’s not the point. I do answer them. Not to him. The answers are for myself.

“I’m done with the self-punishment…” I said.

“I'm over that. I punished myself for the first thirty five years of my life and for about two solid years after that. That shit is over…”

Is it? Is it?  She seems to be asking. Is it? Is it really over?

“That ‘finding myself’ shit is over too. I found her three years ago. And I dealt with her head on…”

“This is different. I'm not sure what is to be found out there, but something's calling from afar. And I'm too curious to look the other way.”

“You see, this thing I’m doing, looks a lot like I'm traveling by bicycle on foreign lands. And that's true. Yet this trip is less about traveling and more about something else.”

“You’re soul crafting Frances. That’s what you’re doing. You’re going on a pilgrimage,” he said.

“You get to live the question. Not many people do that. Not many people go there. Not many people know what that is,”

“But you do. You’re going into this trip. Into the unknown. You’re going into it to see if you are special, to proof yourself. Because you want to live a larger life,”

“And you’re going because you are being called to. Because you have faith that there is something more out there,”

“And you’re going to punish yourself,”

“And you know you’re going to get your ass kicked. You know that.”

“But you also know that there just so much more. You will meet so many people. You’re about to receive so much love,”

“Because you’re going in with an open heart.”

---

By now, I have cycled over three hundred miles of New Zealand lands. I've cycled over hills, by the coast, in the mountains, by the rivers, by the vineyards, by the lakes.

It has been a bit over a month since I left. I’ve been living with and out of my bicycle for more than three quarters of those days. 

It was during my second day of cycling. Heading towards the closest campground to find shelter for the night. The sun was not shining. It was cold. It was windy. It was almost night. Massive logging trucks passed me by at over one hundred kilometers per hour. There was barely any shoulder on the road. One truck after the other.

It was somewhere along highway number six where I stopped. It was, during that particular rain storm when I closed my eyes.

I closed my eyes and I sobbed.

“I want to go home.” I cried out loud.

Home? Where is home anyways? she asked.

I had come to the very end of the world. There are eight thousand miles between the place I yearn to return to and this place.

And it wasn’t the first time I was going to burst in tears. The road was about to get a little steeper, a little windier. The road was about to get a little lonelier.

---

The other day I caught myself tending the wet laundry. Wet because my gear was drenched from the evening before.

As I hung the gear to dry, and as I removed the dead bugs and twigs I thought:

This is hard. Hard hard work…

When the gear dried up, I folded and stuffed all of it, again, for the eleven hundredth time, into my panniers.

And then it hit me. 

What is joy? Where is joy? When is joy?

And I thought much about the story of the monk he shared with me one evening: the monk sweeping the stairs.

What if we remove ourselves from everything we know?

From the job, from the loft, from the car, from the espresso machine. From the four post bed. From the corner shrine. From the family. From the friends. From the new found love. From the ginger chews. From the morning runs.

From the grocery trips to Whole Foods. From the Saturday morning hikes in Boulder followed by a morning at the farmers market for some people watching. From Sunday espresso drinking mornings at Wash Park.  From walking to the coffee shop on Sixth on Sunday afternoons.

From the comforts of a safe place to be in - day in and day out.

From knowing where I was going to sleep each night.

From predictability.

I have intentionally chosen to remove myself from everything and from everyone I know.

I have left again. 

She is on the move. Again.  

---

‘My Bike Takes Me Places That School Never Could’

And my bicycle has taken me to New Zealand. And New Zealand is learning me a lot.

But the real lessons are coming from the hills. From the rain.

They seem to be coming from doing and dealing with shitty things. The shitty non glamorous part of this life I’m choosing every day to lead these days.

When the lungs can’t puff any harder, when my legs can't pedal any faster.

When I have to get off the bike and push it uphill. And the ego suffers.

When my body tries to figure out what's happening. So it pushes back and it cramps and it bleeds.

When I have to hang my knife from the chest, next to my heart, and let it defend me against a pervert in the middle of an isolated dirt road.

It’s either that motherfucker or me.

From the nights I’ve worried about not having a safe place to sleep.

From the times that yet again and again I've asked myself why do I chose to do these things - why? why? why?

But the answer is not clear to me just yet.

The first two weeks on the road were very hard on me.

The roads, the cycling, the weight on the bicycle, my level of fitness to carry and sustain the weight of the load that I seem to be carrying on my bicycle.

And in my soul still. This shit never ends.  

The rain, the winds, the fog. 

The nutrition. The budget.

The surprise of being homesick and the admission of such state.

My safety.

The isolation of the places I cycled through during these initial days.

The eight thousand miles between New Zealand and Colorado.

The trace of the desert sage that I struggle not to forget.  

And the other scents I look forward to return to…

The self judgement. The never ceasing battle between the ego and the self which seems to never cease to ask:

Are you capable of doing this?

Did you bite off more than you can chew? 

Perhaps I did. Perhaps I didn’t.

Perhaps I've been getting served my very own version of shit sandwich. But the espresso is bountiful and delicious in New Zealand and it happens to go well with my lunch.